Liberalization & Deregulation

Internet Diffusion

Electronic Commerce

Hardware Manufacturing

Software Development 

Who uses IT?

IT Labor Market

IT Geographics

IT Financing

Government Policies

Legal Environment

Transborder Data Flows 

Analysis: IT Strengths & Weakness

Analysis: Impacts on the Business

Sources and Links

· Total labor market in China 

· Chinese education system reform 

Population: 1,261,832,482 (July 2000 est.) 

Age structure: 0-14 years: 25% (male 168,040,006; female 152,826,953) 15-64 years: 68% (male 439,736,737; female 413,454,673) 65 years and over: 7% (male 41,200,297; female 46,573,816) (2000 est.) 

Population growth rate: 0.9% (2000 est.) 

Net migration rate: -0.4 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2000 est.) 

Sex ratio: at birth: 1.15 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.1 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.88 male(s)/female total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2000 est.) 

Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 81.5% male: 89.9% female: 72.7% (1995 est.) 

Labor force: 700 million (1998 est.) 

Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 50%, industry 24%, services 26% (1998) 

Unemployment rate: urban unemployment roughly 10%; substantial unemployment and underemployment in rural areas (1999 est.) 

October 21, 2000, Beijing ZhongGuan IT Professionals Association was established to unite IT professionals, improve the communication and collaboration within the industry and strengthen the communication with other industries and government. 

Fleck Research forecasts that there are 210,000 workers within Mainland China engaged in the production of connectors, cable assemblies and backplanes during 2000. Fleck Research estimates that 47,000 workers are in Mainland China working with Taiwanese companies, 21,000 employed by U.S. companies in China, 6,000 employed by European companies and 4,000 employed by Japanese companies. As to China domestic connector and cable assembly companies, the state-owned companies have 25,000 workers, the joint venture companies have 67,000 employees and the privately owned companies have 41,000 employees. In total, the Chinese nationalist companies have 133,000 employees. This equates to 1.7 billion man-hours or 4.9 million man years. As workers in these factories are on the job 12 hours a day with a seven-day work week, translated to the Western world standards of a 40-hour work week and 242 working days annually, China workers within our industry are equivalent to 20 million man years. Thus, China has the equivalent of 872,000 workers producing connectors, cable assemblies and backplanes. 

In order to optimize the structure of higher education and the allocation of educational resources, about 450 universities were restructured into 188 since 1996. The universities and colleges enrolled 1.6 million students in 1999, 47.4 per cent more than the previous year. The number of new recruits in 2000 leaped to 2 million, 25 per cent more than the previous year. Adult education, vocational training and non-compulsory education run by non-State investment have been encouraged and running schools is no longer the business of the government. By the end of last year, middle schools and vocational schools run by social organizations numbered 3,500, and 37 "private" colleges were approved by the Ministry of Education to issue diplomas. The total number of private higher-education schools that do not issue diplomas is about 1,000. During the past five years, the previous exam-centred educational mechanism was gradually replaced by a system based on quality. The schools are enhancing the development of the students' ethics and ability in social practice. The entrance exam of primary schools to middle schools has been cancelled. The content in college entrance exams now reflects the orientation of comprehensive quality. 

Beginning from next year, primary schools in large and medium-sized cities will start new types of English course, which focuses on students' language communication ability and a more flexible teaching timetable. Primary schools will gradually launch courses in law, psychology and information technology in the coming years. 

Vocational Education

Various levels and different types of vocational education have trained millions of people facing employment pressures and challenges, the 1999 annual report said. Although only 10 percent of China's total funds for education was earmarked for vocational education in 1999, the number of vocational schools accounted for more than half of the total higher learning institutes across the country. Students enrolled in these vocational schools made up 60 per cent of the total number of students enrolled in higher learning institutes. Some 70 per cent of Chinese people have received education at above the junior high school level in a booming vocational education school system. By the end of 1999, 1,345 vocational schools have been set up throughout China, including 817 institutes of higher learning for adults, 313 technical schools and 161 schools for graduates of junior high schools below the age of 16. More than 398,000 students were studying at vocational technical schools in 1999. Over the past year, more than 123,400 adults enrolled in vocational colleges and more than 40,000 graduates got jobs. 

Distance learning by Internet

Deemed as vital to building the country's education system for life-long learning in the 21st century, distance education via the Internet first caught the Chinese Government's attention in 1994. To provide an Internet infrastructure for distance education, the government began to invest in the construction of the China Education and Research Network (CERNET), one of the four national computer networks approved by the State Council. That was the beginning of the construction of a high-speed transmission platform for distance education in China. Now CERNET has 36 bytes linking 700 universities and research institutes in 70 cities. More than 200,000 servers are available on 3 million terminals nationwide. By the end of this year, most provinces and cities in the country will open high-speed transmission networks to link up with CERNET. Meanwhile, the Chinese Educational TV network (CETV) is busily engaged in technological renovations. When the renovation is finished by the end of October, CETV's satellite digital transmission platform will have dozens of digital channels, including eight VBI-IP channels and eight IP channels directly linked to the Internet. Tsinghua enrolled 1,740 Internet postgraduate students in business administration, computer technology and civil and business law in 1999. This year the prestigious university began to teach students over the Internet in 20 provinces and major cities. Zhejiang University enrolled nearly 3,000 Internet undergraduate students and 420 ostgraduate students in computer, English literature and business administration courses in 1998 and 1999. Hunan University not only enrolled 3,500 Internet students in computer and English literature courses, but also began to teach its undergraduates on campus online. At lower levels, more than 800,000 computers have been installed in 70,000 primary and secondary schools. Over 10 million primary and secondary school students have learnt how to use computers to go online. 

The Ministry of Education has allocated 80 million yuan (US$9.6 million) this year to the country's disadvantaged remote western regions to launch distance education projects to help them catch up with the developed areas. In an effort to speed up basic education in these areas, the central government has invested 2.4 billion yuan (US$289 million) in the past three years. 

Sources: 18